The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Despite Olivier and Signoret's acting, Oswald Morris's usual fine photography, a strong basic story, and smooth direction, this tragedy of good intentions and false accusations falls far short of harrowing or discomfiting. ... Olivier underplays his way into the part of Weir much more naturally and convincingly than in his lauded stage role as the similarly ineffectual anti-hero of Ionesco's
Rhinoceros. ... The meetings between Weir and the schoolgirl are all tactfully handled, with Sarah Miles making a pleasing debut as the knowing sensual innocent. The twistedly happy ending for Weir, however, suggests the unattractive moral that only by joining in the rat-race of deception and aping the unscrupulous methods of a commercial culture that exploits the prurient British attitude to sex, can the little man like him survive. A sharper narrative, less heavily loaded against its high-minded protagonist, might have made the condemnation of this perversion of values more obvious, and indeed the whole tale more credible."
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "Made at the height of the "kitchen sink" boom in British cinema, this rather neglected drama boasts one of Laurence Olivier's most uncharacteristic and underrated performances. As the teacher at an inner-city school who is looked down upon by everyone from his blowsy wife Simone Signoret to class bully Terence Stamp, he conveys a sense of both seedy decency and wounded resignation that makes his prosecution for molestation and persecution by Signoret all the more painful to endure. In her screen debut, Sarah Miles is superb as the scorned teenager and Thora Hird bristles with indignation as her grasping mother." British film critic
Leslie Halliwell said: "Rather flabby 'adult' drama, too schematic to be really interesting , despite the best that acting can do." == References ==